Leverage: A Very Leverage Christmas
by Gilbert H. Karr
Summary: It's the holiday season, and at Leverage HQ, secret things are afoot. COMPLETE!
1. Operation Elf

**A Very Leverage Christmas: **

**Chapter 1: Operation Elf**

Eliot was acting suspicious. Parker had been sitting in the rafters watching him for the last half hour. Every few minutes, he came out of his office carrying a cardboard box. Some of them were big, and some were small. There was nothing special about them, and Parker might not have even noticed at all except for the sheer number of boxes. She was starting to wonder how he had ever managed to fit in there with all the boxes.

Moments later, he came out wearing sunglasses, a baseball cap and heavy work gloves, and he had his black, retrieval specialist duffel bag on his shoulder. This time, he carried three boxes stacked on top of one another. He carried them out, presumably to his pickup truck (though Parker hadn't checked, but it didn't seem realistic that he could fit that many boxes in his Charger) and came back in. When her curiosity finally got the better of her, and she rapelled down to see what he was doing, he was bent over, rooting around in the storage closet. She knew not to touch him while he didn't know she was there, so she quietly said, "Eliot?"

He jumped, whacked his head on the closet door, and cursed loudly. "Dammit, Parker."

"I scared you."

"Yeah. You're supposed to be out with Hardison."

"Wha—?"

"You told me yesterday that you and Hardison were going to catch a movie this evening."

"The one he wanted to see was sold out. What are you doing?"

"Nuthin' Parker. I'm just going out for awhile."

It looked to Parker like he was moving out, which was definitely not okay in her universe. Eliot was the one who cooked for her, took care of her, and helped her bug Hardison. She wasn't going to let it happen if she could help it.

"It looks like you're leaving."

"I'll be back in time for supper, Parker. Now go find something to do." With those words, Eliot walked out the front door, closing it softly behind him. She followed him out, only to see him put the boxes he was carrying into the back of his truck and step back inside one more time. Without really having any sort of plan in mind, and before she allowed herself to think too much about what she was doing or about what he would do when he found out, she crawled up under his truck, and grasped the undercarriage. Holding on while the truck was moving wasn't really as easy as she thought, especially when Eliot was driving, so she really didn't have an opportunity to think about where they were going. She had her hands rather full instead.

A few minutes later, the truck stopped abruptly at the curb, and she was very nearly dislodged. She heard a car door slam, a muttered curse, and then footsteps hurrying away from the truck. When the footsteps died away, she slipped carefully out from under the truck, looking around, trying to figure out which direction Eliot went.

There was a playground across the street, and Parker was scanning it, thinking that might be where Eliot went. She stifled a scream as a hand closed on her wrist with a grip like iron, and yanked her around.

"Damn it, Parker. What are you doing here?" His eyes were blazing. "I thought I told you to find something else to do."

"I did. I came with you."

"Why?"

"I wanted to see what you were doing. I was curious."

"There's something wrong with you," he said, but it was affectionate enough. Then he continued, "I guess you might as well help, since you're here."

"Oh, goody," she said, smiling and rubbing her hands together. "What are we doing?"

"We're sneaking. I want you to take these three boxes and put them on that porch. Then come back here. Don't make any noise. We don't want anyone to know we're out here."

"Okay," she agreed, eyes sparkling. She took the boxes, as requested, and placed them carefully on a small table on the porch. Then, she quietly made her way back to Eliot's truck. He was gone. She started looking for him, and found him walking back up to where she was from across the way.

"Eliot?"

"What?"

"Why are we leaving boxes at random peoples' houses?"

"Well, darlin', it's Christmas."

"So?"

"So, it's our turn to play Mystery Santa. There's a custom in the town I grew up in—when somebody had it rough, the people of the town would come together to help provide for the family. Santa does his thing every year, but this was more special because we got to be Santa's helpers, and do really nice things for our neighbors, when they needed us most. If their fence needed fixing, we fixed it. If they needed food, that's what Mystery Santa left. It was a way of taking care of people without hurting their dignity. It wasn't charity, it was Mystery Santa, and for whatever reason, they could stomach that better. Santa provided toys and games for the kids, but we took turns providing what the rest of the family needed. Each time, a different person was chosen to be Mystery Santa, depending on the needs of the family. That was an honor my neighbors used to fight over. "

He paused and looked at her, wondering how she would react to the news that someone else was helping Santa with his work. You never knew how Parker would react to any given thing, but her expression didn't change. She just looked at him, expectantly, like a little kid waiting for the rest of the bedtime story, and with Parker, that might not be all that far off. Finally, he said, "The people who live in these houses are having a hard time this year, and if we don't do something, their children won't have anything under their tree or in their stocking."

"Santa won't let that happen."

"I know. That's why he asked me to help deliver these, and since you came along, you get to help, too. Now, be quiet before someone hears us and comes to see what we are doing. It's supposed to be a surprise."

It took longer than Eliot had estimated to deliver the packages, close to three hours, even with both of them working on it, and he found himself grateful for her presence. Smiling widely, Parker took great pride in helping Eliot, and soon they had all of their packages delivered and they were ready to head back. It was getting cold, and looked like it might snow later.

He saw the little thief shivering, and he turned up the heat in the truck. When they got back, he sat her down in the living room and chatted with her while he fixed them both some hot chocolate. It was late, and everyone else was either long gone or in bed. Walking back over to her, he handed her the mug he had fixed just for her, with extra chocolate and the tiny little marshmallows, just the way she liked it, and wishing Nate had a fireplace, in front of which he could warm himself, he settled instead for standing next to Parker, drinking his hot chocolate.

"Thank you for your help, today," he said, smiling at her.

"Merry Christmas, Eliot," she said.


	2. Secret Gifts

**A/N: I don't own Leverage or any of the characters. I write for fun and not for profit. I don 't write slash. **

**Thank you to all of those who are reading and reviewing. **

**This is just a bit of fluff for the Christmas Season. Enjoy. **

**A Very Leverage Christmas: **

**Chapter 2—Secret Gifts**

Nate was lost in his own thoughts as he helped Sophie lay the clues for a Christmas scavenger hunt for Parker. It was for everyone really, but the young blonde was like a little kid at Christmas time, and so, knowing she would enjoy it the most, they were laying down the clues with her in mind. Since the team had been together, and in the times they were together after the team split, Sophie had made it her mission to make sure the younger woman had the kind of Christmas she had never once had as a child.

He had had more than enough to drink, and he thought that was probably why he heard his grandmother's voice in his head—high and sweet and cracked with age—just as it had been the last time he saw her. _She was an Irish woman, and that, in and of itself, made her a force of nature. She held both of his hands in her gnarled ones, and drew him closer as she spoke to him. She was one of those people who was always somewhere on the spectrum of irresistible force and immovable object, and no one was ever sure exactly where she was on the spectrum at any given time. Sometimes, she was both, and very nearly at the same time. He had just announced to the extended family his plans to go off to seminary, and she sat watching him with that way she had, as though she was taking in all of the information she heard and filing it away for later. She didn't respond to his announcement, and he almost thought she hadn't heard him, or else didn't approve, when she spoke up. _

"_What was the first gift of Christmas, Nathan?" This was a game they played. She would ask him a question, seemingly a non-sequiter to what they were previously discussing, but that simply meant that her steel trap mind had drawn a connection, and it was now up to him to find it. _

_He didn't know why exactly she was asking him that question, or what it had to do with his plans to go to seminary, but he would give her the respect she was due—the respect she demanded as his mother's mother. He thought about it for a moment, and then said, "Family."_

"_No," she said, looking sad, "though that was a nice try. Think about it."_

_That was one of the last conversations he'd had with his mother's mother, and he wasn't sure why he was thinking about it now, other than the realization that struck him that he really missed their game. The old lady had died shortly after that, and he had gone off to seminary, and never had learned whatever it was she was trying to teach him that time. Maybe it was the booze, or perhaps it was because the question remained largely unanswered for Nate that it haunted many of his Christmases down through the years. _

_The first time was with Maggie. He'd had such grand plans in those days. Everything is bigger, brighter, more intense for the young. Something had happened to derail some of his grand plans (as something usually does), and he'd ended up dropping out of seminary and becoming an insurance claims investigator. It was shortly after that time that he'd met a small, blonde woman named Maggie, and he still considered it a small miracle that she'd finally agreed to go out with him in the first place, and how the son of Jimmy Ford, the ex-Jesuit seminary student ever ended up married was still one of the great mysteries of the universe in his mind. _

_His mind jumped ahead a few years to their first Christmas together as a married couple. He was standing on a step stool in order to place the brand new tree topper star on top of the tree. Maggie was below him, on the other side, throwing bits of tinsel at each branch separately, and he was amused at the care she took to be sure each small strand of the shiny metallic decoration was situated just right on the tree. _

_No one had ever really asked him the question since that day, when his maternal grandmother asked it, but the question had sprung unbidden into his mind on several occasions, and he had sought to answer it. He heard her voice again in his mind, and thought briefly that she would approve of Maggie._

"_What was the first gift of Christmas, Nathan?_

"_Joy," he had said to himself, unable to think of any greater gift than that. Maggie had heard him, and said, "What?" _

"_I was just thinking about Joy, " he said, and she smiled, and continued decorating the tree. She hadn't told him that his answer was wrong, like his grandmother did, for she hadn't even known the question, but he couldn't help wondering what she would have said if she had known. Maggie kept her own counsel on certain things, and she might simply not have cared to discuss it. He had no idea. He had never told her his thoughts, being unsure of exactly what her answer would be, he simply hadn't pressed. He had been in a variety of Christmas settings, around a number of people, each time the question floated back across his consciousness. _

_The next time he was confronted with the question, the circumstances were not happy ones. His son, Sam, was seven and it was the first Christmas they knew of his illness, and incidentally, a Christmas they would spend in a new and terrifying world of hospitals and doctor's offices. One of the doctors in charge of his son's care had asked him the question that time, and he couldn't even remember what the circumstances around the asking were. _

"_What was the first gift of Christmas?"_

"_Love," he said, heart breaking at his son's condition. Less than a year later, Sam had died, and Nate had felt a black void take over the place where his heart used to be. The heart itself lay shattered in millions of tiny burning pieces, somewhere else. Christmas would never be the same for him again. Eventually, he would be able to watch others enjoying the holiday without wanting to blow his damned brains out, or trying to drown himself in a bottle of Irish, but it would never hold the same meaning for him again, and yet at the same time, it held a greater meaning. A heart, once given, can never be taken back, at least not while it remains whole, and when he really allowed himself to think about it, he would never have wanted to go back to where they were before Sam was born, because that would have meant missing some of the best years of his life. _

Nate shook himself to clear his head of those thoughts. He had now found himself another family, of sorts, and he was currently helping the woman of his dreams put the finishing touches on a Christmas surprise for three people who meant the world to them. Later tonight, they would decorate the tree, and maybe sing some carols. It was shaping up to be a pretty good Christmas for him.

"A penny for your thoughts?"

"I was thinking about a question my grandmother asked me, a long time ago. She never told me the answer, wanting me to come up with it myself, and sometimes, the question comes back to me. I'm not sure why."

"Oh? Well, what's the question?"

"What was the first gift of Christmas?"

"Hmm. Interesting." She didn't say any more, as the others were assembling for the game. They all laughed and joked their way through the clues, letting Parker have most of them, since she was so excited and treated each new clue like a treasure. Sophie had planned carefully, however, and planted a few clues that were written for specific people. The clues she had planted led to a small gift for each of them. When they got to the end, Parker opened the last box to find a jeweled ball ornament that was trimmed in gold, and hinged on one side, so that it opened in the middle. There was a small wad of paper inside that had Nate's name on it. Parker handed it to him, eyes full of glee, and danced off to explore her own treasure.

Nate unfolded the slip of paper, to find a small, hand-drawn picture, which led him a short distance away. He found a long, flat box nestled in the nook of a tree branch, and lifting it down carefully, he opened it to find two sheets of paper, folded in quarters, a scrap of colored paper with Sophie's handwriting, a photograph, and a small string of glass beads of multiple colors. One end of the bead strand had a small silver bead with wings and an S engraved in the center, and on the other end, there was a small silver alphabet block.

He unfolded the note first. In Sophie's handwriting, was scrawled _The first gift of Christmas was a child. _

He turned the picture over to find a photograph of himself and his son. Somehow, he remembered that this particular photo used to have Maggie in it, but there was no sign of her in this one…just Nathan and Sam. He was surprised to realize that he could look at it, and while it was still painful, there was nothing like the gut-wrenching loss he once felt. He didn't even feel like he needed a drink. With a soft sigh, he unfolded the other papers. One was an explanation of the beads, and it explained that one of the colors in the strand represented Sam, while the other represented new, future possibilities.

The second folded sheet turned out to be a record of a sonogram, and on the bottom Sophie had scrawled, "Meet Nathan James Ford. Merry Christmas, Daddy." Suddenly, he found himself grinning like an idiot, and unable to stop. _Merry Christmas, indeed._


	3. Reindeer Games

**A/N: As usual, I don't own Leverage. I write for fun and make no profit. I don't write slash. **

**Thanks to all of my wonderful readers, and thank you much for all of the lovely reviews. Dying to know what you think about this next part.**

**This chapter is mostly fluff because I'm in the mood to do it. Maybe someone can let me know if the humor works, as I usually don't write humor well. **

**Hope you find it a little amusing, anyway. Enjoy. **

**A Very Leverage Christmas: ****Chapter 3—Reindeer Games**

Hardison had locked himself in his office and hadn't come out. This had been going on for three days now. He would come to the office in the morning, greet everyone, go into his office and lock the door, and come out only in the evening, long enough to say goodbye to the rest of the team on his way out the door. Eliot knew he was working on something on his computer, but he hadn't said what it was. Usually, the gregarious young man had no problem working on his computer in Nate's living room, but this time was different, and that made Eliot suspicious. Did Nate have him working on something for the team? If so, why keep it secret? He was determined to find out what his friend was up to. Walking over to the door of Hardison's office, Eliot knocked.

"Go away. I'm busy," came the muffled response.

"Hardison, it's me. Let me in," Eliot answered, in a tone that brooked no argument. There was no answer. Finally, letting just a hint of his frustration show in his voice, Eliot said, "Open the door or I'll break it down." After a long pause, Eliot heard a chair push back from the desk, and footsteps walking across the room. He heard the lock click, and waited a moment before walking in, so as not to scare Hardison.

The younger man was sitting at his desk again, typing away furiously, when Eliot walked in and re-locked the door behind him.

"What do you want?"

"I want to know why you're hiding out in here, and what it is you're working on. If it is something for the team, I need to know, so I can plan security contingencies."

The younger man paused in his typing long enough to look up and meet the hitter's eyes. Finally, he sighed and said, "It's not something for the team. Nothing like that, anyway."

"So, then, what is it?"

"It's a surprise."

"Damn it, Hardison," Eliot said, eyes flashing.

"All right. I'll—I'll let you see for yourself. Promise not to laugh?"

"I ain't makin' any promises. Depends on what you're doin'."

Hardison got up from his chair, and walked over to his bookshelf. He stood there staring like he was looking for a particular book. Eliot moved over behind his desk and sat down in the desk chair, turning the screen to face him. The opening screen showed a field of snow, with a green flocked tree here and there. Red letters flashed the words, "Press enter to begin." Glancing at Hardison, Eliot reached out with one finger and pressed the enter key. The next screen had rows of boxes with colorful skis, snowboards, and luges, and in green letters flashed the words, "Choose your sport". Eliot clicked on a pair of black skis with wolf heads on them. The screen changed, and suddenly, a lanky reindeer, in a black leather and silver studded jacket, with a wolf head helmet and sunglasses danced onto the screen. Eliot heard canned laughter and then the "voice" of the announcer boomed out over the crowd.

"Ladies and gentlemen, up next is Blitzen. Favored to win, this young buck has won two out of three previous races today. He stands ready." A gun went off. " And he's off!" Suddenly "Blitzen" went zooming down the hill like a runaway circus tent, and Eliot came very close to snickering. He cut it off and made it into a smirk instead. As silly as the game was, it was strangely addictive. He kept wanting to push the button. Forcing himself to curb the activity for a moment, he looked up to find Hardison, still staring at the bookcase.

"Hardison," he said, biting back a smile, "are you kiddin' me with this? What are you doin', man?"

"I know it's dumb." It was actually kind of cool, but Eliot didn't plan to tell him that. He pulled his attention back as the hacker started speaking again. "Parker was listening to Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer on the radio the other day, and she said it made her think of that time Tara mentioned not getting to play reindeer games, and then she started wondering what kinds of games they would play, and how they would keep score, and she just kept on talking about it, so I got to thinking—and I wondered if I could create some reindeer games for her. When it's finished, you'll be able to choose whichever reindeer you want to play with, and there will also be an option for penguins and polar bears."

"You know penguins are only found at the South Pole, right?"

"Two words, man. Dramatic license. There will also be different games to choose from. I plan to have an option for flying contests, sleigh races, a reindeer sock hop, and reindeer hockey and ice skating, as well as the sports you see already. I just hope Parker likes it."

Eliot smirked. The young blonde would love it, he thought, but didn't say so. There was something wildly entertaining about letting the younger man sweat a little. But this game, it was just so—so Parker. It was perfect for her, and a mark of his friend's knowledge of and care for her that he was able to make it so perfectly tailored to her. Of course, it didn't hurt that he wanted her to play more video games with him, and well, this would help. Maybe. Hard to tell with Parker, and she had the same need to be outdoors that Eliot himself had, but he knew, if Hardison made it just for her, she would make it a point to play it with him, sometimes, anyway. Eliot shook his head, and hit the enter button to start the game over, unable to resist.

Hardison was silent for a moment and then said, "Do you think I'll be able to finish all of that by Christmas?"

"In three days? I think you have your work cut out for you, my man. You may need to narrow the focus and then do version two next year. Realistically, you can't stay locked in here between now and then. She's already thinking you don't want to spend time with her."

He saw the expression on the younger man's face and said, "Hey, man, I'd help if I could, but the computer stuff is your thing, not mine. I can keep her occupied, for a little while, if working on the larger screen will help, but I'll leave you to explain it to Nate."

"Thanks, man. You're the best."

"You owe me one, you mean?" Not that he would ever collect, but it was fun to make the younger man squirm a bit. On the other hand, entertaining Parker wasn't always easier, though it was far easier these days than it used to be, so he might just collect on that favor after all.

"Yeah, that too."

Smiling to himself, Eliot started to leave Hardison's office. It would be time for dinner soon, and he had promised to keep Parker occupied, so he needed to think of some things for them to do. He got as far as the door when another thought occurred to him. He stopped and turned around.

"Hardison?"

"Yeah?"

"Why did Blitzen have a wolf helmet?"

"The game is also kind of tailored to each player. When you put your name in to create a profile, it is programmed to dress the character you choose as you would dress."

"And there's one for each of us? Nate and Sophie, too?"

"Nate and Sophie, too," he confirmed.

"Damn it, Hardison," he said, but his words were laced with affectionate exasperation. He couldn't help it. He might never again get the image of a reindeer dressed like Sophie Devereaux, flying through the air or down a mountain, out of his head. As he walked out the door, he couldn't hold his amusement in any longer, and a snicker escaped, just as he pulled the door closed behind him.


End file.
